


Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

by C-chan (1001paperboxes)



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Christmas Party, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/pseuds/C-chan
Summary: In which Team Cockroach tries to hold a Christmas party.





	Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mllelaurel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelaurel/gifts).



"What's wrong?"

Eleanor sat down beside Jason, making herself comfortable in the corner he'd been occupying.

Jason shrugged. "Oh, nothing."

Eleanor frowned. "You've been sitting here pouting for ten minutes now, and shouting out stuff like 'I'M SAD, I'M SO SAD, OH WHAT A STUPID WORLD WE LIVE IN!'"

"Oh, that."

 _Oh, that._ Yeah, typical Jason.

She waited for further explanation to go along with the acknowledgement, but, as she probably should have expected, none came.

"Well?" she finally prompted, and Jason shrugged.

"It's just that… apparently we've been rebooted eight hundred times or something. That means we've been dead for probably a million years."

Only three hundred or so; Chidi asked Michael after one of their moral philosophy lessons, but what was the difference? What was even the point of counting years in the afterlife?

"So we've been dead for a while. What's wrong with that? You upset that you don't know if the Jaguars ever won the superbowl or something?"

"No, that's not it. It's just…" he sighed. "We've been here a million years, and I don't remember ever celebrating Christmas."

"Huh." Now that she thought about it, it was a decent point. Holidays weren't really a thing in the Good-slash-Bad Place, or whatever you wanted to call this weird neighbourhood which was repeatedly failing to be their own personal hell. There were celebrations, sure, as new frozen yoghurt shops opened and Tahani was asked to hold yet another gala almost weekly, but nothing that was really tied to any earth holidays. No Fourth of July, no Valentine's Day, no excuses to go hook up with drunk people on New Year's…..

"I just miss it, y'know? All the holiday specials, and writing letters to Santa, and stuffing my face with free food at parties, and spiking the designated driver's eggnog so they can have a good time too, and getting together with my sixty person dance crew to freestyle to hiphop covers of Christmas carols. There was one year, we did an epic mashup of O Holy Night and Santa Claus is Coming To Town. It was _tight_. But now I can't even solo to Jingle Bells. Maybe I never will again!"

Eleanor smiled and reached a hand to mess up Jason's hair. It wasn't as soft as she expected—she wondered if Janet had been providing him hair gel or something.

"You know what? I think we're overdue for some holiday excitement."

Jason perked up. "You mean–"

Eleanor beamed. "Heck yes I do! Hold your horses, forknuts, we're celebrating Christmas."

* * *

"Hey Michael, how exactly do holidays work around here?"

Michael looked up at Eleanor from his desk, a benign sort of confused look taking over his features.

"I'm not sure I understand the question, Eleanor. I mean, I realize that Vicky's National Clam Chowder Day was intentional torture–"

"It's still just a lumpy savory latté."

"But we do, at the very least, try to have celebrations on a regular basis, much as you would expect to see in the real Good Place, to raise morale and the like. Even in HQ we had cake about once a week. Given, the cake was often stale, or laced with poison or narcotics, or stale and laced with both poison _and_ narcotics, and almost always red velvet or two-year-old fruitcake, but–"

"Not Devil's Food?"

"Turns out, people like rich chocolate desserts too much."

Eleanor considered that for a moment. "Fair."

"Anyways," Michael continued. "Even we folks here in the Bad Place like a reason to add some pep to our day."

"You've done a pretty good job of that, and everything, even if they are technically designed to make life literally hell in the long run," Eleanor conceded. "But don't you guys do any earth holidays?"

"Ah. So that's the problem." Michael's hands folded together as he leaned forward. "How to explain? People from all over the world can arrive in the same neighbourhood, good or bad. To celebrate all the holidays that they enjoyed on earth would be a bit of a hassle, especially as time works a little differently on our plane than on the one you're used to. Putting it all together, it's much easier if we stick to our own real and imagined celebrations. Except for ones literally dedicated to spirits, of course. And Columbus Day. That's a favourite around here, as you can well imagine."

Eleanor considered that for a moment. "Okay. Yeah. I see the appeal. But that means no big things like Christmas or Valentine's Day, huh?"

"I'm afraid not," Michael confirmed. "Of course, if you were to want to create your own holiday, I couldn't exactly stop you. And, as we are doing our best to appear a Good Place community, you might find everyone more supportive than would normally be the case. Still, I'm afraid that one or more of you humans would have to be the driving force, and it's more than likely that it would end up failing spectacularly, but there's nothing like a good try, is there?"

Eleanor nodded, already thinking through what planning a Christmas would mean in her head. 

"So we just need to pull off the best ever holiday of our own. I think we can manage that." She was almost at the door when she turned back, smiling. "Thanks, Michael. That was really helpful."

"Anytime," Michael replied, "and good luck."

* * *

"You want to what?"

Chidi looked at Eleanor confused, as if she'd just started speaking French. Okay, bad example, Chidi's first language was French so he'd actually understand that perfectly. Stupid super intelligent Chidi. Klingon maybe? Or Algonquian? Or maybe a made-up language comprised entirely of fist bumps and interpretive dance moves? Ah well, it wasn't important.

"Apparently we've been here for, like, three hundred years, and haven't once celebrated any real holidays. And that's just a forking load of shirt if you ask me."

"Or me!" Jason added, raising his hand high.

"Or him," Eleanor agreed. "So, we're gonna hold the biggest, baddest Christmas this neighbourhood has ever seen."

"But how are we going to manage such a feat?" Tahani wondered. "It's always a balmy twenty-eight degrees here. Or a little over eighty in your American degrees, if I recall correctly. Not proper for a white Christmas whatsoever."

"Yeah, and they don't get much in the way of snow in Florida or Australia either, or wherever the heck Chidi's from, either," Eleanor retorted.

"Senegal."

"Senegal. Right." Eleanor repeated. (Darn it, usually she was better at remembering that!) "Anyway, the point is, we're all at least culturally Christian here–"

Chidi raised his hand. "Actually, I was brought up Muslim and–"

"Close enough."

"No, no, it's really n–"

"You celebrated Christmas, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, technically I did, but–"

"So what's the problem?" Eleanor asked, and continued on without waiting for a response. "We're all gonna work together and make something so awesome, Vicky and the rest of these demons aren't gonna know what hit 'em."

"So how are we gonna make Christmas happen?" Jason wondered. "I mean, does Santa even know how to deliver presents to the afterlife?"

"I don't know," Eleanor replied, "but that can't stop us from doing something amazing anyway."

"You mean like some sort of dope party?"

"Sure," Eleanor agreed. "I mean, I know I crashed my fair share of Christmas get-togethers in my day. Turns out if the guest list is big enough, nobody notices if you sneak in for some free booze. Plus, if anyone ever asks, just say you're in accounting. Nobody ever knows who all's in accounting."

"One of my dearest memories is of the time that my good friend Kate invited me over to spend the holidays with her grandmother-in-law," Tahani added.

"I… admittedly do like the faculty holiday parties I've attended," Chidi added, meekly.

"So we're all on-board," Eleanor declared. "Team Cockroach is holding one motherforking heck of a Christmas Party."

"Yes," Tahani exclaimed. "I can see it now. Perhaps it shall not be a typical Christmas by my standards, but a hostess does not let such trifling things as the weather stand in her way of creating the perfect atmosphere. I, of course, shall therefore prepare the venue for our Christmas celebration."

"Dope!" Jason raised his hand again "Oh! I'll handle the tunes. Gonna blow everyone's ears off with that sweet holiday sound."

"Good," Eleanor replied. "So now we've got a place, music… Chidi, think you can handle the food?"

Chidi frowned. "I mean, I _guess,_ but–"

"Great. And I'll take care of the guest list." Eleanor grinned. "This is gonna be forking amazing, guys. Let's get planning."

* * *

"What is this?"

Jason looked around, eyes wide, as he took in the décor that Tahani had chosen and prepared with Janet's assistance.

Tahani preened. "Do you like it, darling? I always find that crimson and pine always add a sense of traditional sophistication to the holidays."

"I mean it's dope and all, but–"

Tahani followed his gaze, frowning in thought. "You're right, of course. I should have modeled it after my 2015 charity gala, not the 2014 one; what was I thinking? Janet!"

"Hi there!" Janet arrived on cue, still sporting the ugly Christmas sweater Eleanor had insisted she wear during the party planning. (What even was the point of a sweater with working lights?)

"Janet. The décor is, of course, spectacular as always, but don't you think the 2015 gala was more–"

"Where's the Santa Claus? And the singing tree? And–"

Tahani turned to look at Jason. "I'm sorry. The what?"

Jason sighed. "I mean, this is totally nice and expensive, like the hotel I once slept in the lobby of because we could only afford two rooms for our entire crew. But it doesn't scream Christmas. Like, how's Santa gonna deliver presents if we don't have a chimney, or at least the fireplace channel? And what bout stockings? And you've gotta have a lightshow, and–"

Janet smiled. "I think I can manage that."

A blink later, the room was full of animatronic santas and trees with dancing lights, and the full set of décor from the 2015 holiday charity gala. There was even a place in the corner with DJ gear ready for Jason to break out his mad beats on the day of. It clashed all together, and at a glance it seemed garrish, but somehow… it seemed homey in a quaint sort of way.

"Yes," Tahani said. "This… this will do."

* * *

"You're thinking about this too hard."

"Oh am I?"

Chidi paced the length of the living room, a small whiteboard in hand. It had the word "Menu" written in bold letters across the top, and underneath, several smudges where ideas had been written and crossed out.

Eleanor settled further back into the couch, put her legs up on the coffee table, and rubbed her temples. "Yes you are. You can literally get anything. Anything at all. Whatever we can't get made by whoever's pretending to be a world-class chef right now, Janet can probably make happen. So what's keeping you?"

"I'm well aware that we could literally have everything," Chidi replied, "but what if there's too much food? What if the amount of food literally makes people think about indigestion and then they're all stuck feeling horrible all night? What if there's not enough and I leave out someone's favourite? Or what if—"

Eleanor sighed. Maybe she'd just talk to Janet and have her create a buffet after all.

* * *

"So all you want me to do is show up at this party you're running?" Michael asked.

"Well, not quite," Eleanor explained, fidgeting nervously. She needed this, darnit, if she was really going to make everything perfect. "Janet?"

"Hi there!"

Janet popped in from her pocket dimension holding the padded red suit that Eleanor had requested.

"You don't expect me to wear _that,_ do you?"

Janet smiled. "The real Saint Nicholas is a resident of the Good Place, and thus is unavailable for borrowing at our location. And while there are four hundred eighty-two thousand and sixty-three Santa impersonators in the Bad Place, the research that I have conducted in the past five seconds suggest that people respond better to a Santa that seems familiar, yet is hard to place."

"So you in the fat suit will be perfect," Eleanor explained. "Please? It'll make Jason super happy."

Michael considered for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. I agree. Anything for Jianyu."

* * *

"'I'M SAD! I'M SO SAD! OH WHAT A STUPID WORLD WE LIVE IN!"

Eleanor sighed and settled in beside Jason once more.

"Hey buddy. What is it this time?"

Jason looked down at his long monk shirt and back up at Eleanor. "I just remembered, I'm supposed to be Buddhist. Do Buddhists celebrate Christmas? Will I even be allowed in? What if they call me out for being a Buddhist and turn me away at the door?"

Eleanor wrapped an arm around Jason's shoulder, pulling him in for a loose side-hug. "I'm sure you'll do just fine. And if anyone gives you any trouble, just let me know and I'll whack them over the head with a nutcracker, then get you in the back door."

Jason smiled. "Thanks, Eleanor. You're a real good friend."

Eleanor hugged him closer to her side. "Any time. We humans have to stick together, right? Team Cockroach, good people, and all that."

"Yeah." Jason leaned happily into the embrace. "Can I ask you about one more thing, though?"

"What, Jason?"

"How many times do you think the Jacksonville Jaguars have won the Superbowl by now? I bet at least a hundred…."

* * *

Maybe this Christmas wasn't exactly what everyone had expected originally.

The decorations really did clash, and the bissap really didn't go all that well with the turkey and stuffing. Plus, Tahani's dress seemed a little out of place at a party playing an EDM mix of Judy Garland singing Christmas carols.

But the moment that Jason lept over his DJ table to embrace Santa, it was clear that the effort was worth it.

It wasn't a perfect Christmas, but it was theirs. And for a bunch of fork-ups like they were… it wasn't half-bad after all.


End file.
